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Lessons learned: Using a contract packager
By Rick Lingle, Packaging World
 In last month's Contract Packaging newsletter, we published advice from packaging professionals about selecting contract packagers.
This month, we provide insights about using co-packers. Here are some of the 150+ responses to a recent packworld.com survey, edited for clarity.
- Always attend first production runs, and sign off on an agreed master sample.
- Make sure specifications are clear and unambiguous. Make random quality assurance checks with your team at the contractor's site.
- Demand that your contract packagers have the processes and systems in place to ensure product quality and compliance (for example, traceability) and efficiency. Real-time visibility of their production and inventory, particularly if it can be shared with the end customer, ensures that management has good control of the business.
- Establish your own quality expectations, determine the contractor's ability to perform to that level, and follow up on documentation. Then, leave them alone!
- You can never be too explicit with instructions. Also, make sure you know the key people at the packager, especially those in the warehouse, packaging, quality assurance, and shipping departments. Make a point to visit regularly, have quarterly update meetings, and generally be known at the packager.
- Develop a good working relationship and go into projects with an open mind-set.
- Know your industry and the market. If your firm also manufactures internally, use your internal cost model as a bench mark and leverage it in your negotiations.
- Control of components and service needs must be well-defined, followed, and executed by the packager.
- For food and pharmaceutical products, ensure that the packing equipment is cleaned regularly to GMP/FDA standards.
- Work with a contract packager that offers good communication and does not overcommit on abilities or timeliness.
- Make sure the co-packer can grow with your company; you should be able to forecast your production needs and plan accordingly.
- In general, the contract packager only will be as strong as its management.
- Check to see if the co-packer is financially sound and if it has had any product recalls.
- Conduct a ship test to ensure structural integrity. If custom packaging is being purchased, outline inventory liability. If capital is required, clarify volume expectations and track when depreciation expense is fully absorbed.
- It is a partnership; make the co-packer confirm that WE are in this together—ownership!
Read on for more survey responses.
Baby-formula brand embraces LN2-dosed canisters
Working with an undisclosed contract packager, organic baby foods manufacturer HappyFamily, Brooklyn, NY, is marketing its new HappyBellies dry mix infant formula in 7-oz composite, preformed, prelabeled canisters. The gas-barrier containers are injected with liquid nitrogen (LN2) to extend shelf life, using SoftDose technology from Cryotech International Inc.
The manufacturer says this is a category improvement because previous traditional LN2 dosing systems have not been particularly successful in powder applications. Large gas pockets could erupt and spew powder out of the container.
Cryotech engineers evaluated the situation and recommended their SoftDose technology. The Cryotech UltraDoser SC350 system gently layers a fine spray of liquid nitrogen on top of the powdered product to maximize oxygen displacement and avoid excessive liquid nitrogen splash. When the LN2 comes in contact with the container environment, it becomes gaseous nitrogen. The gas displaces potentially harmful oxygen as the container is seamed shut. Nitrogen injection enables an estimated one-year shelf life for the powdered product.
The contract packaging company's in-house technicians completed the plug-and-play installation and startup of the Cryotech UltraDoser unit themselves, with no difficulties. |
